Saving the cathedral

This is the most sensible thing I have read lately about the Christchurch Anglican Cathedral. (I'm afraid it is a bit long...)

As a former Anglican pastor in Christchurch, I - like almost everyone else - deeply mourn the passing of the architectural heart of our city, the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral.

A few blocks away the Catholic basilica also lies in ruins. Around these two iconic buildings, places of worship for more than 150 years, perhaps 50 other Canterbury churches are demolished, ruined or excluded from use after 10,000 earthquakes.
Oxford Terrace Baptist; Hororata Anglican; All Saints Sumner; the Methodist churches at Rugby St and Durham St; Knox Presbyterian, Bealey Ave - the list goes on and on.
The two cathedrals may have been iconic bricks and mortar in our city, but they were hardly the spiritual heart of Christchurch.

Increasingly, they had morphed into tourist temples, complete with a cafe selling trinkets and a photographic booth outside, or a venue for concert music, with a bit of worship going on, on the side (usually in a side chapel).

They were increasingly irrelevant to ordinary Cantabrians as vital centres of worship. Rugby pitches were more familiar and more exciting.

As representatives of 21st century Christianity in all its colour and vibrancy, they were rather pallid and jaded examples. Larger and much more dynamic churches were flourishing elsewhere: Spreydon Baptist, Grace Vineyard (at Woolston and New Brighton), Majestic (city), Bexley Samoan church, to name just five.

Christchurch began, and has continued, as a city of vibrant Christian communities housed at more than 200 locations (including "Church in the Park").

Christian communities in Christchurch have been scattered and dislocated by the earthquakes; and Bishop Victoria Mathews mentors what true spirituality is all about (character, prayer, a broader perspective, and responding to detractors and critics with grace and humility); and dozens of congregations dovetail in shared facilities (four congregations meet at Middleton Grange School).

Meanwhile, churches in other nations are being toppled, not just by nature, but by human and political forces.

In Orissa, India, for example, a Christchurch group has launched a project to rebuild at least the roofs of 14 churches attacked and ruined by Islamic extremists so Christians can again gather in their communities to worship.

In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, churches have been bulldozed and dismantled during years of systematic persecution, and one congregation has had its buildings destroyed three times.

In Anhui, China, in February a legally registered quarter-century-old church was demolished by the Government in the dead of night, to the shock of its members next morning.

In Kazakhstan in October, new laws resulted in the banning of all small churches or Christian groups in that nation. Five hundred and seventy-nine religious groups were forced to forfeit their registration certificates and cease all religious activity.
In Aswan, Egypt, in September a 3000-strong mob of Muslim villagers inflamed by fiery sermons from imams in 20 mosques, demolished the Mar Gerges church, burned down the businesses and looted the homes of local Coptic Christians, who have worshipped there for nearly two millennia.

During Christmas and New Year 2011-12 the Islamic terror group Boko Haram ("western education is evil") launched a horror campaign against Nigerian Christians resulting in the suicide bombings of: in January, the Evangelical Winning All Church II in Tafawa Balewa; in February the Church of Christ in Nigeria in Jos; and in March, St Finbar's Catholic Church, also in Jos. Most of these attacks took place during worship services when the buildings were packed with men, women and children.

In Myanmar, currently being visited by New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully, the Burmese military demolished a church in Tha Dah Der village, and crosses were systematically torn down or demolished in Mindate, Chin state, a no-go area for Westerners, by the military state.

As we mourn the demolition of Christ Church Cathedral in our affluent, prosperous Garden City, the wise are mindful of widespread anti-church, anti- Jewish and anti-Christian attacks across the world, bordering on genocide in nations such as Sudan and Nigeria.

Our theology reminds us, that God is no respecter of buildings. The Jerusalem Temple was destroyed several times as an expression of divine judgment, and St Patrick notoriously hacked down a sacred oak tree of the Celts.

Christians believe God has chosen to build his "Holy Temple" within all people, expressed by the Apostle Peter as "you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house" and by the Apostle Paul as, "you are the temple".

The death of three Christchurch men dismantling an organ in the damaged Durham St Methodist church during the February 22 quake, reminds us buildings are just stones; but that the Christian Church and the true religion of Christchurch is its people, wherever they are housed, be it soaring cathedral or smelly Bethlehem stable.

* John Stringer was an Anglican pastor in the Christchurch diocese from 2005 to 2009. He lost his house, car and business in the February 22, 2010, earthquake and now teaches at Middleton Grange School.